.BAB
88
The old limits of the raj, were once treated in a separate article. extensive than they are at present, and succes&ive losses reduced it at annexation' to the three small tappas of Pipra, Chanda, and Babhnipair Khas. Since then there has been no change in its boundaries. In 1800 A. D., the Government demand was Rs. 7,723, which rose in two years to Rs. 12,744. This seems to have exhausted the riches of the place, and for the next fifteen years the revenne remained steadily at about Rs, 8,000. In 1818 A. D. it rose again to Rs. 10,520, and continued to increase from Rs. 16,000 ( 1821 to 1826 ) to Rs. 20,000 ( 1829 to 1836 ). In 1837 which
is
much more
Raja Darshan Singh wasnazim, and screwed up the demand to Rs, 27,568, extortion from which the pargana did not recover for the remainder of native rule for, though the same official managed to collect Rs. 20,991 in 1842 A. D., the average receipts till amiexatioai varied from Rs. 13,000 to When we took over the country it was found Rs. 15,000 per annum. that 17,802 acres were under crultivation at a rent of Rs; 34,868, and the land revenue was fixed at Rs. 21,655. Within fifteen years the increase of cultivation has been enormous, and when the land was re-surveyed for regular settlement in 1871, it was found that 26,941 acres were under cultivation at an admitted rent of Rs. 61,756.
an
It was impossible to take full rents at once from the villages recently reclaimed from the jungle, and the Settlement Ofiicer proposed a progres-
sive
demand
as follows
- —
1873 to 1877 1878 to 1880 1881 to 1883
...
...
Es. 42,055 42,825
...
...
44,100
...
...
for the remainder of the thirty year settlement Rs, 44,390 ; the rates being in the final year Rs. 1-12-6 per cultivated acre, and Rs. 1-5-0 per acre on the whole area of the assessed portion of the pargana. The Government grants have not yet come under assessment.
and
The present Raja of Babhnip&r is the head of the only legitimate family of descendants from the old Kalhans Rajas of Khurasa, whose sway extended from Gonda far into the Gorakhpur district. As the famous Ratan Pande (See Gonda pargana
article)
was
sitting
dhama on Achal Narain
Singh, the last Kalhans Raja, for his sins and profligacy, the younger Rani, who was bom of a Chhattri house in the present pargana of Rasulpur Ghaus,* took compassion on the old man's sufferings and offered him food and drink. This he declined, but in return for her civility he prophesied to her the coming ruin of her family, and exhorted her to fly for safety to her father's house, adding that her progeny should be Rajas ; but that even as his eyes had sunk in through fasting, so should every chieftain in her family be blind. The curse has only been partially fulfilled, as though there have been one or two blind Rajas of Babhnip^ir, the majority of them have been unaffected in their eyesight. Bhing Singh, the posthumous son of Raja Achal Narain Singh, was bom a few months after the fall of the Khurasa raj, in what is now the Basti district, and when he grew up possessed himself of a small chieftainship, embracing the present parganas of Raslilpur Ghaus, Babhnipair, BurhapSra, and part of tappa Hathni • Of the Basti district.
